Jowell leads for London Mayor, but Hodge proves popular with LabourList readers

Tessa Jowell remains the favoured Labour candidate for London Mayor among LabourList readers, but Margaret Hodge’s surprising announcement this week that she would not seek the nomination could throw the race open.

Hodge’s decision became public on Wednesday, two days after our survey opened – and she finished an impressive third place, with 12% of the vote. How that support will transfer to other candidates could now fundamentally change the dynamic of the contest.

The results were:

Jowell 25%, Khan 14%, Hodge 12%, Abbott 11%, Lammy 9%, Wolmar 7%, Lawrence 7%, Adonis 3%

Tessa Jowell’s 11 point lead over her nearest competitor Sadiq Khan looks difficult to overcome, and her 25% is impressive in such a crowded field. A pattern is now emerging: Jowell has now kept a constant first place position in both Evening Standard polls and previous LabourList surveys. In fact, the polls and surveys are starting to bear a closer resemblance.

Also notable is that Diane Abbott has had a slight loss of support, while Sadiq Khan’s popularity has risen – something which has also appeared in other polling. Given Abbott’s outspoken critique on Labour’s flagship Mansion Tax policy (including clashing with Jim Murphy on the issue) and Khan’s defence of it, we could be seeing a “Mansion Tax effect” on the race. However, Lammy and Jowell have both voiced doubts over the policy, and they have both scored better with readers this time around: Lammy is up two points, Jowell up six.

Christian Wolmar, who has made his support for a Mansion Tax to fund the NHS known, has also performed better. He has improved his standing in the last survey by three points.

Neither of the peers named, Doreen Lawrence and Andrew Adonis, are thought to be seriously considering a run, but their names still crop up in discussions about the role.

9% of readers said they did not know, and 4% selected other. Combined with the 12% who were backing Hodge, that means the backing of one in four LabourList readers is still up for grabs. If, as is expected, both Lawrence and Adonis rule themselves out of contention, that would leave as many as 35% without a preferred candidate.

With both Miliband and Cameron recently making their distaste for PMQs known, we asked readers whether they would get rid of the weekly slanging match.

14% of those surveyed said they would like to scrap PMQs completely, while 62% would like to see the format revamped – although what that could mean is up for debate.

Ed Miliband has said that as Prime Minister he would introduce a “people’s PMQs”, where members of the public ask him questions, but this is understood to be complementary to the current system rather than a replacement. Others have suggested that it could be replaced with a more sober weekly committee inquiry, which would help to remove the boorishness of the occasion. One of Tony Blair’s first moves as PM was to change PMQs from bi-weekly, 20 minutes sessions to a once-weekly half-hour session.

21% of those who voted said that PMQs should be left as it is, and 2% did not know.

We also asked LabourList readers how they felt Jim Murphy was doing as leader of Scottish Labour. The results from that question will be published later today.

1,063 people voted in our survey this week. Thanks to everyone who took part.